


Forgotten

by MentalAnarchy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MentalAnarchy/pseuds/MentalAnarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leaving Donna dredges up something the Doctor has been avoiding for several lifetimes. (Implied Two/Jamie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten

To live in hearts we leave behind  
Is not to die.  
~Thomas Campbell  
  
  
Funny how the presence of one little human could make such a difference. When Donna had been on board, even the furthest labyrinthine depths of the Tardis had seemed somehow cozy. Never mind that she had never been this far into the ship. These rooms had gone unused for a great many years. These corridors had heard the echoes of only his footsteps for centuries. But they seemed even emptier now.  
  
He wandered for hours. Perhaps even days. He didn’t bother to try and suss it out, though he could have easily enough. Empty corridors and empty rooms and more empty corridors.  
  
He was vaguely surprised when he arrived where he had been headed all along. Surprised, because he hadn’t consciously intended to come here. But only vaguely, because now that he considered it, this was the most appropriate place for him to have gone.  
  
Considering what he’d done to Donna.  
  
He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against the door. It was pleasantly cool, yet he still winced. He had avoided coming here for a good many lifetimes.  
  
_Jamie._  
  
Even after so long, the scars still ached. If only he hadn’t called in the Time Lords. If only he had left before they had arrived. If only he had been able to make them listen.  
  
Impossibilities all. Especially the last.  
  
There was no logical reason for the three of them to remain together. Jamie and Zoe shouldn’t have been any of the places he'd taken them, shouldn’t have seen any of the things he’d shown them. They'd had to be put back where and when they'd come from, and it didn’t matter in the least to the Timelords that that wasn't where they truly belonged. Not anymore.  
  
The forced regeneration that the Time Lords had sentenced him to had been unspeakable agony, but even that wasn’t as painful as losing Jamie and Zoe. As knowing that they wouldn’t even be allowed to remember their travels. To remember one another. To remember more of him than a passing encounter with a curious stranger.  
  
They might as well have cut his beating hearts from his chest.  
  
And now he was reliving that pain with Donna. Worse: this time he’d had to do the deed himself. He tried to take comfort in the fact that it had saved her life. But he had still lost another friend. And he couldn’t get the image out of his mind, of Donna looking at him — no, through him. As though he didn’t matter.  
  
Because as far as she knew, he didn't.  
  
He slammed his fist against the door. And it opened. A sad little smile twitched the corners of his mouth, just for a moment. He’d promised Jamie dozens of times that they’d get around to repairing that faulty latch. He reached out to tug it closed again...  
  
But stopped with his hand on the knob. _No. I’ve avoided this for too long._ He forced himself to step into the room.  
  
The furnishings were simple and, as Jamie had preferred, low-tech. The bed was rumpled, hastily vacated, the blanket turned back on both sides. The wardrobe door hung open a hand’s breadth, and the sleeve of a clean white linen shirt peeked out.  
  
He ran his hand across the back of the wooden chair, traced the edge of the wash stand with a trembling fingertip. No dust. The Tardis had kept the room perfectly preserved. Right down to the water in the basin. It had been near boiling when Jamie had poured it, all those lifetimes ago. He dipped his fingers in it. Room temperature.  
  
He reached for the towel and found it slightly damp. Before he could stop himself, he’d pulled it from the bar and pressed it to his nose.  
  
And his hearts all but stopped. The towel still smelled of him, under the heather-scented soap. It was faint, but he was certain of it.  
  
And if the towel still held Jamie’s scent...  
  
He turned and stared at the bed.  
  
A step forward. It felt like walking knee-deep through molasses. Then another. He didn’t want to do this, but he knew he needed to. Just as the Tardis had known he would, one day. Slowly, he sat down on the edge of the bed, let his hand fall into the space where Jamie had always slept.  
  
He half expected to find the bed still warm, but no. The Tardis wouldn’t have known that Jamie wasn’t coming back until long after his body heat had already dissipated. The sheets were cool and soft under his hand.  
  
He’d done his best to wall off his memories of these sheets, this bed. Of the heat of Jamie’s skin and the softness of Jamie’s hair. They all came rushing at him as he laid his head down on Jamie’s pillow, as he inhaled the long-preserved scents of clean sweat and youthful exuberance.  
  
The pillow smelled entirely of Jamie. The bedsheet that he drew up over himself, that he buried his face in, smelled of other things as well. There was an unfamiliar scent that he knew must be his own, eight regenerations ago. And laid over it was the smell of the passion and the tenderness that had been taken from them.  
  
The Doctor closed his eyes and rolled himself into the bedclothes, cocooning himself tightly in the memories he’d tried for so long to ignore. As the first sobs of his overdue mourning shook him, the Tardis was kind enough to lower the lights.


End file.
